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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

I was so happy to join Jenny and Ruth as Guest Designer at Fetch-a-Sketch back in January. Was my first experience with sketch challenges. How cool to take the guesswork out of designing. Leaves only the question of, hmmm, colors, patterns, stamps, papers, embellies...

Anyhoo, Fetch-a-Sketch is celebrating their first birthday and I'm happy to be celebrating with them in the Birthday Blog Hop. If you're hopping along, you should have arrived from Fliss. You can find all the participants back at Fetch-a-Sketch if you get lost.

There were a wide variety of sketches over the year - some definitely out of my comfort zone. Like this one - sketch #13 from last year.

So I challenged myself to see what I could do with the sketch, as well as using a digi stamp image from Dude Time Doodles and some digital PP from Funky Hand. These two companies have been nice enough to sponsor Fetch-a-Sketch challenges in the past.

Now, before I go any further I must give you some background information. I grew up with a BF who was the youngest of 5. The rest were brothers. Although I never watched the Three Stooges myself, I must say I feel like I grew up with them cuz "the boys" were always watching them after school. And imitating them. And I was always at their house. Therefore, I couldn't resist when I saw Mr. "Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk".

Now when you've got this guy happening, how can you resist some warped humor. I highly recommend Dude Time Doodles if you want to give masculine and humor a go! I opted to use the digital kraft papers from Funky Hand as a subtle BG. Some paper pieced bad hair, sloppy stitching, distress inked edges and a haphazardly stamped sentiment finished the front. Inside...

This might be going out to one of "the boys"...

Happy Birthday Fetch-a-Sketch! Please visit Lou at LoopyLousLoopyThoughts for your next stop on the blog. Have a wonderful day!

And because I originally thought about using a folklorica die cut on the lower half, I had some leftover pieces so I put two more cards together.

Used another gold embossed wine label here, with a strip of merlot underneath it and a strip of shimmery gold for the sentiment. Fun thing about the die cuts (I used to think "Who needs dies? I can cut everything out by hand." Ha.) if you cut the same image from different colors, you can mix and match. Thus the touches of red in the black image came from the image I die cut from red. This card uses the red negative. So efficient, eh?

Thanks for visiting! Chances are I'm sipping on a glass of riesling as you read this...

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Went over to Retro Sketches to see what goodness they had going on and lo and behold - a sketch from N@. (Next year's Gallery Idol if ya ask me.) based on the oh-so-cool rainbow card she did here. But what a killer sketch.

There are 22 elements on that puppy. Count 'em. I did and this is what I came up with.

Though I'm not sure this is what they meant when they said a "splash of color" over at Lawnscaping, I was in love with the gravity defying paint on the photo and it inspired my choice of purple for stamping.

There's another blog I like to check out - What's on your Workdesk Wednesday? - and although I've never been brave enough to admit to them what my workdesk ironing board looks like, I'm as messy as the best of 'em.

This is only a tiny bit of my messiness. But there's a reason for my rambling. I spent some time this weekend cataloging my inks - notice all the little swatches on the metal ring on the left. No, I don't have enough inks yet either lest you feel it necessary to make some smart remark! Anyway, I stamped each swatch twice, once with a rubber and once with a clear stamp cuz I find some inks don't do too well with clear stamps. That piece of scrap paper I used to stamp off on before cleaning the stamps. Scrap paper meet new Martha Stewart triple butterfly punch (I know, everyone else has had this punch for years). Hello 22 elements.

Counting flowers. And bling. A bit of homemade washi tape. Oh, and notice the flower. Baby wipes from the stamp cleaning process! I truly have a hard time throwing away purty things ...

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

A quick post for another pocket card. Quite the rage of interactive cards out there lately, but this is about as interactive as I get!

Saw this idea over at Papertrey's Make it Monday a couple weeks ago. Used kraft CS and Jenny Bowlin inks. Used a folded over sticker as a tab and stitched it too. This is going out to a friend's daughter who's in a lot of pain and they haven't found out why.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

The grand finale! Here is the last of my rose cards. As well as the packaging for this card set. Tomorrow is the bday brunch! Fittingly, for card #10 I used the sketch from The Craft's Meow. After all, "the rose" is from them.

You may have to look hard to find it, but I really did use the sketch.

Thought I was going to use PP for the rose, but couldn't resist "coloring" one last time. I shoulda used PP :(
I wanted a pale yellow rose. Started with Squeezed Lemon Distress. It's not pale. So I added some shimmering watercolors. Again. Looks really splotchy, eh? Oh well, the shimmer IRL kinda makes up for that.

Cut a "label" die from PP. Stamped the card base (note the "Gracias" peeking out above the label) and "Thanks" sentiment and distressed them with Tea Dye Distress. Stitched the label on. Added the rose and then the sentiment with dimensional adhesive and glued a bow of scrunched seam binding at the bottom of the label.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Lest you fear I've completely lost it, another friend just called and invited us to her bday brunch next weekend. Guess what she's getting as a gift?!?!? This rose (#8 I believe) was made with two challenges in mind. The sketch #14 at Retro Sketches, although I took me some liberties! And the flower challenge #10 at Young Crafters Unite.

This poor rose. Watercolored to near death - aqua pencils, watercolors, sparkling watercolors. But it took that long for me to get the effect I was hoping for.

Created the strip down the side by inking the leaf stamp with Versamark and stamping. Decided upon the French sentiment stamp and had to place the flower more centrally than in the sketch.

Meet Eden Rose 85. She was kind enough to "pose" for this card.

I just love this time of year in my yard. The English roses delight on a daily basis as they go from bud to bloom. Thanks for coming by.

Monday, June 4, 2012

The PDC colors are so fun and delicate. As are the inspiration photos. So sketchy. Cool.

I actually made two cards with the colors. First off is the rose card, this time for my aunt's 70th bday. She may be 70 but she doesn't seem it at all. Went lighter on the coloring of the rose - yellow and pink this time. Added that die cut strip of the perfect DCWV red, some gray spatters and some matting with PP too. And a sweet sentiment on a tag attached with a teensy tiny brad.

Then, using up scraps, I tried my hand at the "little collage and lotsa white space" that's happening out in cardmaking blogland. Need more practice but I'm OK with this first attempt.

What I love about it? All the white space. What I don't love? It'll take a million years to use up my stash using this method!

Another rose comin' at ya. Very CAS (sometimes I forget that CASual Fridays is supposed to be about CAS) and including a big piece of bling. Very fitting to the challenge at CASual Fridays:

Inspiration for the vellum rose came from Amy W. of the DT at The Craft's Meow. Thought it would make a great wedding card so stamped the wonderful sentiment from Hero Arts. One of the risks of the business - stamping on textured CS - I don't usually have a problem with Versafine...

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Quick one here. Made another rose card and this one is going to the CPS card sketch #267 and Less is More who are featuring red, white and blue in Her Majesty's honor.

The rose - heat embossed on vellum, again. The die cut label stamped with Faded Jeans Distress ink. The red spheres were a test run of my new rainbow die. Found a stamp that fit inside the circles and one to add some weight to the bottm and called it a card.

Enjoy your weekend, especially those of you in Her Majesty's backyard.

I love that piano. That color - yum. And the Art Deco style of it. Yep, that works with a rose, right? So I went with the color. It immediately reminded me of bandana PP (it spoke to the country girl in me!) I bought awhile ago. And bandanas made me think of the Happy Trails stamp set (CHF) of Kim's and the adorable little paisleys. So I distributed them (like the plates on the wall) on the pocket and the pull out card. Some bling on the pocket. And a couple of layers to the rose for more dimension. And the sentiment from Word Up. Done.

BTW, I created the pocket to fit in a standard envelope like a normal card.

Friday, June 1, 2012

As I said, I'm on a roll. And it's all about a rose. And a set of cards for my neighbor
for her birthday.

Meet Card #2. Used the same rose, but sketch #99 from Waltzingmouse and some WMS stamps.

Thanks to the DT card from Karin A. and the paper pack from Bo Bunny that fell into my hand... this came together easily. The rose heat embossed on vellum. The chicken wire BG masked and stamped onto the card base. The PP was lovely as is. Just added my sentiment and distressed the edges. Three little glitter pearls and the rose popped up on double foam dots.